At the port to Lesvos

Ayvalik is a small turkish town at the northern Aegean connected to Lesvos by ferry. The island itself is somewhere at the horizon, amongst some other smaller ones closing the bay in which the port is. But I've got sick (just a cold and a fever) and I'm waiting.


I was in contact with some former job colleagues for some hellish tax declarations I had to prepare, and I told them about my plans to visit Lesvos. They said they envied me and wished me good luck and nice experiences in the lesbian paradise (was I looking for new adventures?, they asked). I had to clarify that I only wanted to go to whichever charming greek town and find a nice room with a desk and a view (preferably to the sea; even better, a terrace with a table and a shadow and the view to the sea). Over there I would spend my time writing, that's the reason I came here for.

When I got to this town of Ayvalik, to the port to Lesvos, and I was feeling a bit weak already, and I went to a guesthouse, it looked somewhat nice but I didnt pay much attention since I only wanted to take the room quickly so that I could leave the baggage and rest a bit; my plan was to stay for a couple of days anyway. I fell asleep for a short while, I woke up and I went to the shared toilet, and then I saw it, there it was: the terrace, there were tables on it, a shadow half wood half grapevine, and a view of the rest of the town, the red tile roofs, on the left side an old church and a minaret, on the right side the bay and the sea and the islands in front...


I'm not going to come to any easy conclusion about my targets or my dreams or the way everything ended up being so that I am here today. Maybe I still feel like going to Lesvos, maybe there's something in my imagination I'd like to find out there (to experience in there?) regardless of how probable it is I get it the way I've supposedly imagined it. Anyway I'll stay in here a few days for sure, thinking about the ferry, half sick and keeping myself warm, writing... not in a hurry at all.

If you work with pigs

There's a poem I wrote 4 or 5 years ago, now that I know some former colleagues are listening...

Si trabajas con cerdos el olor no se va.
Llegas a casa y te lijas la piel,
te arrancas las uñas,
las limpias por debajo, y te las vuelves a poner,
frotas uno a uno cada cabello,
abrillantas las axilas y las curcusillas,
haces un enema en cada poro de tus pies,
pero el olor a cerdo sigue ahí.
Puedes pensar que tu trabajo no te afecta,
que desdoblas tu personalidad cuando te vas
y la recompones cuando vuelves,
que puedes mantener tu yo íntimo intacto,
que continúas impermeable a las exigencias del guión.
Pero recuerda: si trabajas con cerdos se te queda el olor.

(Translation into English will follow soon, basically it means if you work with pigs you might think when you get home you clean yourself up, get a shower, and the stink will go, but if you work with pigs you'll smell.)

The idea is actually older; around 10 years ago a friend working as an IT consultant told me about a friend of his who was working in a pig farm.

I remembered about it yesterday during my connecting flight from Frankfurt to Istanbul. I was sitting just beside the wing, and the noise from the engines was quite loud, annoying. But then I realised there were other noises there in the background: the sound of turning the pages of a newspaper from the guy sitting next to me, some quiet conversations (it was late already), the blonde stewardess walking around... and I realised that I could enjoy and relax if I tried to focus and listen to those ambiance sounds, then the dominating clatter of the engine got further and further away...

The guy sitting beside was Turkish. I switched on his reading light (during take off they'd switch everything off, he was reading and he didn't seem to know about it), and after that he was helplessly trying to talk to me; his english was so bad, he spoke good german but I only know a few words (like "kleine" and "grote", some numbers). It was silly, however agreeable at the same, he guy seemed happy meeting me, a foreigner travelling to Turkey. If I understood well, he was going back to visit his father at hospital; lung problems, surgery?.

Probably he had had a long journey from somewhere in Germany, his hands were black dirty and he smelled like a pig. (Is that the reason why I remembered about the poem -or was it because of the noise of the engine?)

Countdown for Istanbul

10 days to go, and not necessarily coming back...

It's all about time, isnt it? Even if I feel somewhat tired and I have some much staff to get finished (including a frightening VAT declaration), I am quietly waiting and it feels ok.

It would be nice if I said that, after the forced working-break about to finish now, I'm planning to go back to the doing-nothing, to nadaism. But I'm afraid I'm not, I'm just and only really looking forward to continue with my next novel. (However, it depends on how you look at it, writing could be a nadaist activity for me, at least according to Spanish editors.)

Anyhow, the point of this post is the pointless (as the previous post, as everything). I've got the promise of freedom, in Istanbul and around in Turkey, and it's enough for my mind to keep me alive and happy. Besides, there's the pleasure of my resignation, the delight in my leaving.

(Warning: nothing new on the following statement); stupidly enough, it seems that a mind which is forever about to do something, or alternatively, which continuously has just done something, would be a mind in paradise. There's a single thing I'd like, for now: let me enjoy it!

The point of the pointless

I've been now around 2 months and a half working, handling requests and preparing deliveries pretty much every week: doing “useful” stuff.

Although the first question is: what's the meaning of “useful”. For me there's quite a few valuable professions, e.g. doctors, taxi drivers, farmers and fishermen, waiters. Not me. Even scientists give a more real fruit to society, compared to mine.

I'm being paid, that's true. But I'd rather be doing something for the nadaist cause, I'd be devoted to meaningless investigations and the like.

It's all a matter of time, isn't it? It's the practical problem to deal with: when you're working you don't find free time for whatever you like, when you're not working you want to spend your time on amusing stuff, something exciting and different, or perhaps you'd just like to repeat those very nice things you enjoyed so much in the past.

Psychological time actually becomes a bigger problem: you don't want to feel that you're wasting your time - particularly when you're about to die (I've never understood why exactly there's a relation between having a good time and a kind of examination you're supposed to pass before your death?) Anyway, it's even worse, it's a mystical or religious problem, since your time is limited and in consequence there's some questions without answer you may dare to ask about waiting for an answer.

Obviously everything, literally everything in a human mind, it's all about time.

And then, there's this guy I happened to meet, a writer who lives (starves) from his writing. It seemed he wanted to help me but he had enough of his own, anyhow there's a lot of courage he gave me, and something he told me I found very beautiful: “in literature there's no wasted time”. Even if you throw it away when you're finished, next time you try to write it, it will be better. Next thing you try to write, it will only become better.

I think he's right, and for sure it does not only apply to literature. A colleague at work told me that he feels the more or less the same about programming in Java. No doubt, if that's ok for him. Other people raise children.

The point is: you have your personal definition of your activity for which there's no wasted time, then you should just focus on it and not spend much time on anything else. If that activity becomes your job, then you'll get paid for it. If not, you'll have to sacrifice time for whatever useful you are able to do and entitles you to a salary, and the rest of your time will be devoted to the pointless.

And the point for you will be on the pointless, of course.